Inside the Metropolitan Correctional Centre, the notorious Manhattan prison where Jeffrey Epstein died
Hidden among Manhattan skyscrapers was Jeffrey Epstein’s final home, a high rise facility know for being one of the most secure — and notorious — prisons in the world.
It’s easy to miss as you stroll past. Just one more tower in a sea of skyscrapers.
But this modest 12-storey high-rise, overlooked and outshone by Manhattan’s myriad other gleaming buildings, is one of the most secure facilities in the US. Perhaps the world.
Earlier this month, passers-by would likely be oblivious that alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was living out his final days high above them on the ninth floor.
When you think of maximum security prisons, Alcatraz might come to mind — an institution separated physically from the rest of humankind. Maybe not a block in the centre of one of the world’s busiest metropolises.
The Metropolitan Correctional Centre, dubbed New York’s own “gulag”, is one of the highest security prisons in the US.
It’s just minutes from the hubbub of Wall Street, with subway lines rattling beneath and the world famous Brooklyn Bridge within spitting distance. Yet inmates can barely see anything of one of the world’s busiest cities beyond its walls.
It’s meant to keep the accused inside and out of harm’s way. And yet a catalogue of inexplicable errors meant that Epstein, who was arrested on sex trafficking charges, died here before his alleged victims saw justice.
Former financier and friend to presidents past and present, he was found dead within his cells on August 10.
How that fatal feat managed to be pulled off, in a facility custom-designed to prevent precisely that from happening, is the subject of several investigations and a growing mountain of conspiracy theories. But the conditions at MCC, a place where only those on remand are kept, has long been questioned. Some have said the jail is “horrifying”.
US Attorney-General William Barr has said the prison had “serious irregularities,” and the running of the facility had led to “serious concerns”.
HORRIFYING
Epstein was just one of the many high profile inmates the MCC has welcomed, which house people accused of federal crimes while they await their court case.
These have included fraudster Bernie Madoff, convicted drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, and a string of terrorists including Abu Anas al-Libi and Khalid al-Fawwaz.
Strolling towards the MCC, there are clues that you are entering a distinct zone of New York. Police roadblocks cordon off the streets in the Civic Centre neighbourhood that also includes several court houses, giving the area an eerie serenity.
It’s one of two prisons within a few blocks. The Manhattan Detention Complex, for non-federal offences, is nearby. It’s nicknamed “The Tombs” due to the pastiche Egyptian styling of the original building. An over-street connection between the adjoining court and the prison was named “The Bridge of Sighs” due to the sounds convicts made as they were led away after being found guilty.
Like its counterpart, the MCC is also directly linked to a courthouse to ease transportation of the accused.
Built in 1975, it was the US’s first ever high-rise prison. Its height allows far more prisoners to be housed than its footprint might suggest. It can contain as many as 800 inmates.
Few pictures are available of the MCC’s interior — but it’s said to be stark. The cell’s windows are frosted so inmates have almost no view of the teeming city below.
A recreation area on the roof has high walls and a caged roof meaning only the sky is visible; the only alteration to the mundanity is the passing shadow of a skyscraper.
FEARED “10 SOUTH” FLOOR
On the lower levels, many of the cells are laid out in residential units with groups of prisoners sharing social areas.
But the further you go up in the tower the more stringent the security gets. “10 South” as it’s known is the most secure part of an already secure MCC. The jail within a jail has been compared to Guantánamo Bay, but rather than isolated from prying eyes in a remote corner of Cuba, it’s in the middle of downtown.
Prisoners here have no access to the roof. Rather they exercise only every few days, alone, in areas the size of two cells, according to reports.
“The segregated units are horrifying and inhumane,” David Patton, the executive director of Federal Defenders of New York, told the New York Times in 2017.
“If you wanted to intentionally design a place to drive people mad, you’d be hard pressed to do better.”
In 2011, rights group Amnesty International said the unit flouts “international standards for humane treatment,” reported Reuters.
Rats are said to be rife in the building.
Last year, British authorities turned down a US request to extradite alleged hacker Laurie Love partly because they feared he would await trial in the MCC.
Mr Patton said 10 South was a solitary wing that denies inmates human interaction.
“The fluorescent lights are always on. The only sound is the occasional clanking of metal when doors are opened and closed.”
CCTV cameras are said to peer into every cell.
Guzman is reported to have railed against the conditions at the MCC when he was sentenced.
“It has been psychological and mental torture 24 hours a day,” he said.
MANHATTAN’S OWN “GULAG”
Talking to website The Gothamist last year, political science professor Jeanne Theoharis said conditions at the MCC were “filthy, freezing” with “isolation so extreme that you’re punished for speaking through the walls.”
“There is secrecy so deep that people are force-fed and lawyers can be punished for describing the conditions their clients are experiencing — you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was Iran or Russia,” she said.
“But in fact this gulag exists right here in lower Manhattan.”
The MCC may be secure but it’s not impregnable.
In 1990, two inmates managed to use an electrical cord to lower themselves from the second floor onto the street below — one remains at large.
Less successfully, in 1981 one prisoner was almost plucked from the rooftop recreation area by a helicopter before his plan was foiled.
Epstein was housed in 9 South, one floor below and one rung down in security measures from 10 South. Two doors separate the floors, one unlocked electronically and the other by a key.
The jail’s “Special Housing Unit”, 9 South was nonetheless one of the most watched parts of the prison and it should have proved near impossible for Epstein to harm himself or indeed be harmed by others.
And yet there appears to be no surveillance footage of his cell at the time.
It emerged today that one of the two people guarding Epstein the night he died wasn’t a correctional officer.
Federal prisons facing shortages of fully trained guards have resorted to moving support staff to fill in for correctional officers, including clerical workers and teachers.
Jail policy called for guards to check Epstein every 30 minutes, but investigators have learned those checks weren’t done for several hours in the hours before he was discovered on Saturday.
He was also left alone in his cell without a cellmate at the time of his death.
US Attorney-General William Barr said he was “appalled and frankly angry” when he heard that the MCC has been unable to keep Epstein from harm, wither by his own hand or others.
“We are now learning of serious irregularities at this facility that are deeply concerning and demand a thorough investigation.
“We will get to the bottom of what happened, and there will be accountability,”
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